Dixon's defense sets tone in key game against Rockford Lutheran

DIXON – In science, a catalyst increases the rate of a reaction.

At A.C. Bowers Field this fall, the Dixon Dukes defense is acting as the catalyst for the rest of the team. The defense was dominant again on Friday night, propelling Dixon to a 48-8 win over Rockford Lutheran in a key Big Northern matchup with playoff implications for both teams.

“The defense is just getting better and better, and that’s making the offense want to get better,” Dixon linebacker Aidan Schmall said. “That’s creating the energy and the morale. It’s getting the morale way up there.

“We wanted to stop the run in the middle,” Schmall said. “We wanted them to run outside, that’s what we were hoping for. The middle is what we were really working on.”

The tone was set by the Dixon defense in the first half. Of the Crusaders’ eight first-half possessions, only one lasted more than four plays. That was Lutheran’s third drive, which included the Crusaders’ lone first-half first down, but ended with a 10-yard loss on a sack of quarterback Joshua Oetting by Schmall.

Schmall had left the game moments earlier with what he thought was a broken thumb. It turned out not to be broken, and he returned to pick up two big sacks for Dixon (4-2, 4-2 Big Northern).

“It wasn’t broken, so that was good,” Schmall said. “And then I came in and got a couple sacks.”

“That’s our leader,” Dixon coach Dave Smith said. “He’s a team leader. He plays defense, he plays offense, and he plays special teams.”

While the Dixon defense pushed Lutheran backward for a total of negative-14 yards for the first half, the Dixon offense overcame a couple of early mistakes before rolling to 28 points in the second quarter.

Dixon had the ball inside the Lutheran 20-yard line twice in the first quarter, but failed to score after fumbling the ball away on one drive, and then turning the ball over on downs on another.

“Give credit to the defense,” Smith said. “We made mistakes, but our defense had our backs. That’s really what it is about.”

Sebastian Quintana righted the Dixon offensive ship with his brand of bruising running. On the second play of the second quarter, he broke a run for 17 yards down to the Lutheran 7-yard line. He scored on the next play to put Dixon up 6-0.

After a Lutheran drive that went backward 2 yards, Dixon partially blocked a punt. The result was a 6-yard punt that set up the Dixon offense at the Crusaders’ 36-yard line.

A false start moved the Dukes back 5 yards, but they quickly gained that back with a 15-yard pass from Jacob Shafer to Callahan Kyker. Quintana took the next play into the end zone from 25 yards out.

A few minutes later, Quintana sealed his first-half hat trick with a 10-yard touchdown run to put Dixon up 22-0. Quintana scored his fourth touchdown in the second half, and finished with 141 rushing yards and four touchdowns.

“We said it before the game, ‘Let’s come out and get a running game going,’ and Sebastian was like, ‘I’m with you, Coach,’” Smith said. “He ran the ball hard tonight. He’s a real tough, tough kid. So we’ve been wanting this for a long time from him. Now we have to continue it. We’re going to work hard to continue that.”

Shafer and Kyker connected for the final score of the first half, as Kyker juggled a pass in the flat before gaining control and taking it the remaining 60 yards for a touchdown. Shafer finished 13-for-20 for 192 yards, and also had a rushing touchdown in the second half.

The Lutheran offense functioned better in the second half, but it was too late to mount a comeback. Leading rusher Carivious “Tiger” Brown was held to 7 yards on eight attempts in the first half. He finished with 74 yards on 22 attempts.

Oetting’s 1-yard quarterback sneak to cap a long opening drive to the second half was Lutheran’s lone score.

“When you have a defense playing like that, you can do a lot things as a team,” Smith said. “The confidence that grows from the defense playing like that can’t be measured.

“The thing I tried to say at the beginning of the year is that the team chemistry is really good. These kids like each other. They work well together. Everything fits together because of their temperament.”

Dixon’s final score came with the second-string offense in the game, as Jacob Gaither flipped a pass to Cameron Varden for a 12-yard touchdown.

Football

Dixon 48, Rockford Lutheran 8

Star of the game: Sebastian Quintana, Dixon, 12 rushes, 141 yards, 4 touchdowns.

He said it: “Communication is the key. All of us work well together. We have that team chemistry, and everyone talking together. We can just get everything together that we need to.” - Dixon senior Aidan Schmall.